Gerold Oliver News

Dreamgirls – the Tony Award- and Oscar-winning musical by Academy Award nominee Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winner Tom Eyen – opens at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts this Today night, running February 12 through Sunday, February 28.

Dreamgirls – the Tony Award- and Oscar-winning musical by Academy Award nominee Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winner Tom Eyen – opens at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts this Friday night, running February 12 through Sunday, February 28.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Thus, we are happy to present one of our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come

Thus, we are happy to present one of our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2016 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.

Led by a pair of stellar performances from Aaron Solomon and Darryl Deason, Arts Center of Cannon County's production of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men retains its crackling intensity some 61 years after it premiered on television and 58 years since the acclaimed film version starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. Adapted for the stage by Sherman L. Sergel, the play's themes remain imminently relevant in the 21st century, brought to life under Terry Deason's direction.

Jury deliberations get under way tonight in Woodbury as the Arts Center of Cannon County opens its production of the stage classic 12 Angry Men, directed by Terry Deason (who counts among her castmembers her husband, 2015 First Night Honoree Darryl Deason) and running at the theater through October 17. Former TV and radio personality Aaron Solomon stars alongside a cast filled with familiar faces from the Middle Tennessee theater community, including our two other Friday Five personalities Gerold Oliver and Byron Whiting.

More than 150 people gathered at Nashville's venerable Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre Monday night for the announcement of honorees and award winners for the 2015 First Night Honors. Preview Party celebrants were treated to a bountiful buffet of entertainment as cast members from several musicals currently on the boards or upcoming on Middle Tennessee stages performed numbers from their shows.

Nine individuals who have taken leading roles in making live theater in Tennessee better and more magical have been named as members of the Class of 2015 Honorees for The First Night Honors, the annual celebration of all things theatrical held in Nashville every September.

Theater in Tennessee has never been busier nor has it been more diverse than what you'll find onstage this weekend throughout the Volunteer State. From frothy and fun summer musicals that are sure to make you think - like All Shook Up at Chaffin's Barn and A Chorus Line at Cumberland County Playhouse - to new plays from Shawn Whitsell (his latest, Songs For Our Sons, premieres at Darkhorse Theatre on Friday night) and emerging playwright Che Pieper (his new script based on the book The Man With the Light in His Window debuts at The Theater Bug this weekend)…the magic of live theater is all around you…even in this heat and humidity! So pull your seersucker suits and sundresses out of the closet, get all gussied up and make your way to the relative cool of a darkened theater for some midsummer magic!

The First Night Honors' Class of 2015 will be revealed next Monday night, July 27, as Nashville Theater's Big Reveal: The First Night Preview Party gets under way at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre at 6 p.m., featuring entertainment by the casts of some of the summer's biggest musicals throughout Tennessee.

Truth be told, one of my favorite movies is Bring It On, the story of competitive cheerleading starring Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Jesse Bradford and Gabrielle Union - and if I had a dollar for every time I've uttered the phrase 'Brrr…it's cold in here, there must be some Toros in the atmosphere' to my dog following a particularly frigid winter stroll at nighttime...well, I'd be rich. That should give you some indication of how much I love the movie, which has gone on to inspire several sequels and one Broadway musical.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show. Thus, we are happy to present a new feature: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.

It's 1967 and a young Marine, returning from a life-changing experience in Vietnam, is on a bus bound for San Francisco, the site of his last hurrah in 1963: a momentous night before he shipped out for Okinawa in the company of friends and cohorts with whom he'd created a bond he thought would last forever. That initial scene in Dogfight – the hit off-Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and a book by Peter Duchan, based upon a little-known movie of the same name that starred River Phoenix and Lili Taylor – serves as a gateway to the story of Eddie Birdlace and his fellow Marines and a winsome, idealistic young woman who left her imprint on his heart despite his best efforts to forget her.

No matter what the calendar says, we're in early summer already - insofar as theater in Tennessee is concerned, at least - and there are four new shows opening this week that should command your attention. Along with a number of shows that are continuing their runs (like John Chaffin's Cliffhanger at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre), you have plenty of diverse and intriguing onstage offerings to keep you in the relative, air-conditioned comfort of a darkened theater. We've done the necessary research, made the calls to the people-in-the-know and have included the dates, the phone numbers and the websites to make it as easy as possible for you to buy tickets and go show some support for the arts while indulging in the magic of live theater…

Bawdy, irreverent, perhaps even unhinged: What better way to describe Midwinter's First Night? Held Sunday night at Backstage at the Barn, the intimate cabaret theater at Nashville's iconic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the slightly offbeat, decidedly more casual younger sibling of The First Night Honors focused on the fun, while honoring some of Middle Tennessee's best and brightest with First Night Awards.